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Friday, February 19, 2016

Obama and Israel: The Final Year - Prof. Eytan Gilboa

Israel needs a more active and aggressive
diplomatic strategy to thwart what seems to be an escalating campaign of
pressure from the international community on the Palestinian issue; a
campaign that President Obama can be expected to lead in his final
months in office.

President Barack Obama will vacate the White House on January 20,
2017, but he is unlikely to do so in the traditional manner. In their
eighth and final year of service, American presidents generally behave
like “lame ducks.” They don’t initiate new policies or programs,
particularly those that might stir controversy or have an adverse effect
on the chances of their party’s subsequent candidates for office. In
the eighth year, US presidents tend to be preoccupied primarily with
their legacies.

President Obama's approach to securing a legacy appears to be
significantly more aggressive than that typically demonstrated by lame
duck presidents, and this could have serious ramifications for Israel.

From the beginning of his tenure at the White House, Obama’s
relations with Israel have been marred by frequent disagreements and
confrontations, primarily on the Iranian nuclear weapons program and
negotiations with the Palestinians. In November 2015, after the Iran
nuclear deal was finalized, Obama met at the White House with Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The meeting was described as
positive, encouraging many in Israel to hope for a more cooperative,
less confrontational final chapter between the two leaders. Since that
meeting, however, many signs indicate a rough journey ahead for Israel
during Obama’s last year.

A recent pattern of one-sided statements and actions, primarily by
the US and the EU, reveal a new, focused, collaborative attack on
Israel, particularly with regard to the settlements and West Bank
policy. In November 2015, The EU required labeling of goods produced in
the settlements, and later excluded the settlements from its agreements
with Israel. These actions, which were unprecedented in their hostility
to Israel, could not have been undertaken without some degree of US
approval.

The US took two steps that demonstrate that approval: It defended the
EU's labeling action by characterizing it as “only a technical
measure”; and in January 2016, US Customs issued a reminder on a
twenty-year-old requirement to label products from the West Bank and
Gaza. The US and the EU also criticized a proposed Israeli law that
would require Israeli NGOs that receive substantial funds from foreign
countries and organizations to reveal those resources. According to the
Americans and the Europeans, the law would undermine democracy in
Israel.

In a January speech at a security conference in Tel Aviv, US
Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro severely criticized Israel’s settlement
policy. “Too many attacks on Palestinians lack a vigorous investigation
or response by Israeli authorities,” he said. “Too much vigilantism
goes unchecked, and at times there seem to be two standards of adherence
to the rule of law: one for Israelis and another for Palestinians.”
Shapiro, who has had the difficult task of navigating the personal
animosity between Obama and Netanyahu, has been an outstanding
ambassador and a fine advocate for mutual American-Israeli interests.
The harsh tone of his speech was not his style, suggesting either that
it was dictated to him by the White House or the State Department, or
that he thought that this was what they wanted him to say.

These statements and actions in combination reveal a wide-scale,
coordinated attack on the settlements and Israeli policy. This attack is
hypocritical, discriminatory and counterproductive. The EU-US labeling
of goods from the West Bank has not been applied to any other country
holding or occupying disputed territories, such as Morocco in Western
Sahara, Turkey in Northern Cyprus, China in Tibet, or Russia in the
Crimean Peninsula. The lack of a similar EU action in the Northern
Cyprus case is particularly noteworthy, because Cyprus is a member state
of the EU. Singling Israel out for special treatment in this (or any)
way borders on anti-Semitism.

Washington ought to be reminded that often it seems as if the US
maintains two de facto legal systems: one for whites and one for blacks
(as has been highlighted by a spate of investigations into murders of
blacks by white police officers). Yet no one calls the US an apartheid
state, an accusation that is persistently hurled at Israel.

Nor is any other country in the world subjected to relentless
criticism of its policies by numerous NGOs funded by foreign countries.
These NGOs claim solely to be protecting human rights in the West Bank
and Israel, but are in fact seeking a complete Israeli withdrawal to the
pre-1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Several
of them deny the right of Israel to exist at all, and they demonize and
delegitimize Israel abroad. The EU and several European countries pour
tens of millions of euros annually into these hostile NGOs. Israel is
considering a law that would require those NGOs to reveal the funding
they receive from foreign countries; legislation that has been met with
severe criticism in both the EU and the US.

It is the EU and the US which, by funding hostile NGOs in Israel, are
committing a gross intervention in Israeli democracy, not the proposed
law that is intended to defend it.

The White House and the State Department might take a closer look at
their own Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which – considering
the negative connotations with which the term “foreign agent” is
associated – is more libelous than the proposed Israeli law. The Act’s
language is very similar to that of the Israeli proposal, as is the
rationale behind it.

FARA requires that agents representing the interests of foreign
powers in a "political or quasi-political capacity" disclose their
relationship with the foreign government and information about related
activities and finances. FARA explains that its purpose is to facilitate
“evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements
and activities of such persons.” This law has never been used to
question American democracy, but when Israel attempts to take a similar
position, a different standard is applied.

This double standard is also readily apparent in the approach the EU –
and, recently, the US – takes to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Instead of negotiating a peace agreement with Israel, the Palestinian
Authority is conducting a worldwide delegitimization and demonization
campaign against Israel, and plans to advance a resolution at the UN
Security Council outlawing settlements and demanding a timetable for
Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines. France has agreed to support
this plan, and might even submit a similar resolution. France has
proposed a regional conference on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, and
threatened to recognize Palestine if the conference does not gel.

In the past, such moves would have been strongly opposed by the US,
which has always advocated a settlement reached via direct negotiations.
Until recently, the US could be depended upon to veto any UN resolution
calling for an imposed solution. However, in view of its recent
statements and actions, it is no longer clear that the US will continue
to adhere to this policy. US support for an imposed solution would add
another layer of hostility to the existing bad relations between Obama
and Netanyahu.

The above statements and actions – all of which occurred, it should
be noted, during a long wave of Palestinian terrorism against Israeli
citizens – are particularly disturbing because they appear to represent a
coordinated EU-US campaign. They may well serve to harden Palestinian
rejection of negotiations and agreement, because the Palestinians might
reasonably conclude that international pressure will be brought to bear
against Israel to force her to accept their demands without reciprocal
concessions.

President Obama’s policy toward Israel during the last year of his
presidency could be driven by several considerations. During his tenure,
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been the shortest and the least
productive in years. In view of that abysmal record, Obama might want to
demonstrate that he did all in his power to achieve Israeli-Palestinian
peace. He might believe that only aggressive pressure by the US and the
EU on Israel will bring the Palestinians to the negotiating table. He
might want to tie the hands of the next president by leaving a legacy of
fundamentally changed US-Israeli relations, or he might simply wish to
punish Netanyahu for the battle over the Iran nuclear deal and the
failed negotiations with the Palestinians.

It is also entirely possible that Obama will be a new variety of
ex-president. Rather than take on the role of the traditional “former
president” who occupies himself with planning his presidential library
and advocating for causes, he might seek a new important position, such
as Secretary General of the UN or head of a global organization. His
policies and politics during his final year in office might be intended
to improve his chances of winning a prestigious global position.

The signs of a brewing new confrontation with Obama are clearly
visible, and the Israeli government has to find creative and more
effective ways of coping with it. An Israeli initiative could both
undermine Obama’s designs and foil the Palestinian strategy of currying
international pressure on Israel. However, all Israel's options are
problematic, and several are unlikely to be adopted by the present
Israeli coalition government. Also, the Palestinian wave of terrorism
against Israel is still continuing, and Israel cannot be seen to be
succumbing to terror.

Whatever Obama’s motivations and intentions may be, it would be a
mistake to assume that he will spend his last year in the White House
behaving like a typical lame duck president, restrained by the
presidential elections. So what should Israel do? It can hunker down,
wait for Obama’s term to expire, and ride-out the onslaught, but that is
a poor option. The remaining alternatives include a temporary and
limited freezing of settlements, unilateral steps in the West Bank,
participation in a regional peace conference, and the forming of a
national unity government. Whatever strategy is adopted, it should be
accompanied by an urgently needed public diplomacy campaign.

The settlements are the target of the present EU-US campaign – but
they are not the main obstacle to peace; Palestinian rejectionism is.
Limited and temporary freezing of building in the settlements has not
produced any movement on the Palestinian side in the past, and the
present coalition government is unlikely to take that step. The
unilateral disengagement from Gaza failed, but certain conditional
unilateral steps in the West Bank could be contemplated, such as
transfer of certain lands in Area C to control of the Palestinian
Authority.

The Palestinians have rejected every peace proposal offered to them
by Israel and the US: The Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton proposals in 2000;
the Ehud Olmert proposal in 2008; and the John Kerry proposal in 2014.
The US, the EU and the UN nevertheless place most of the blame on Israel
for the stalemate. The solution is an aggressive public diplomacy
campaign designed to illustrate the primacy of Palestinian rejectionism
as the main obstacle to peace. Participation in a regional conference is
risky, but rather than flatly rejecting it, Israel could agree to take
part under certain conditions.

The most effective response by Israel to EU-US pressure would probably be the establishment of a national unity government.

On January 22, during a meeting in Paris with French President
Francois Hollande and Laurent Fabius, opposition leader Isaac Herzog
criticized their promotion of international moves against Israel.
“Decisions of this nature serve as a reward for terrorism and for BDS.
They paralyze the chances of regional moves,” Herzog said, adding that
“the attempt to try and reach a Palestinian state now is
unrealistic.” These views are not far from those of Netanyahu. Herzog
would like to join the coalition, and Netanyahu has an interest in
expanding his razor-thin majority in the Knesset.

Critical challenges require an unusual response, and the present
limited containment policy must be replaced with a more active and
aggressive Israeli diplomatic strategy.

BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler FamilyProf. Eytan Gilboa, a senior research associate at the
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, is director of the Center for
International Communication at Bar-Ilan University.Source: http://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/obama-and-israel-the-final-year-2/ Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.